'It's like an old freight train': Young but talented, Roosevelt can make noise in tourney

KENT — The tracks along the Cuyahoga River tell a story.

They speak to Kent's history as a railroad town, where the depot greeted trains churning their way from Chicago to Jersey City.

So it's fitting that senior Scottie Spears turned to those old familiar train tracks to describe the 2024 Rough Riders.

"It's like an old freight train that's young," Spears said. "It doesn't look pretty. It might not sound good. It might not run well, but it'll go, and when it runs well, it's good."

This Roosevelt team nicely meshes old — a longstanding tradition of success and a number of stout seniors — and young — with a massive number of underclassmen shaping the lineup and the rotation.

This Rough Riders team isn't winning games at the pace of last year — when they won 19, including a 10-4 mark in the Suburban American — but it would be a mistake to underestimate this group.

The core is good, the young talent is strong and there's no question Roosevelt remains on track to be a threat this year and for many seasons to come.

"We're really young," Rough Riders senior catcher Ryan Schromm said. "We're all learning, and there's only a couple seniors out here. We're just doing our best to help these guys play the game and learn the game as they're playing it, get better every day, but we will scrap. We come back. Like there's no quit in this team. That's the biggest thing."

Ryan Schromm guides rotation full of underclassmen

Schromm has his work cut out for him these days.

A year ago, Schromm was in his first season starting at catcher, after starting at second base the prior year, but was working with largely veteran pitchers, including Logan Poole and Peyton Singer. Both Poole and Singer, Roosevelt's leaders in innings pitched last year by a wide margin, are gone. Now it's Schromm's job to guide a rotation made up mostly of juniors and sophomores.

"Guys like Logan and Peyton on the bump, like they got the mind," Schromm said. "Some guys aren't quite there yet, and it's just because they haven't had a lot of innings."

Schromm said sometimes it's just a matter of going out to the mound to calm down the Rough Riders' younger hurlers.

"If it's a big situation, you just got to go out there and give a guy confidence," Schromm said. "Like, there's no reason to be scared, man. Like, as a pitcher, you have control of the game so you can do whatever you want."

The good news is the talent is shining through.

This past week, junior Tristyn Page overcame a couple of errors (three of the five runs he surrendered were unearned) to earn a complete-game win over Highland.

"[He] has really kind of filled the role of the ace this year," Schromm said. "Last year, he had a couple starts, was a little shaky throwing balls and strikes, but this year he's been nails for us."

The previous day, fellow junior Ryan Sanders allowed just one earned run (and five overall) to the Hornets, always one of the best teams in the Suburban League.

"He's really matured as an arm," Schromm said. "Last year, [he] didn't have a lot of zip, but this year really kind of worked on command and you don't need a ton of velocity when you can throw the ball wherever you want."

Roosevelt's Teddy Maccarone, Jack Smith play key roles

Teddy Maccarone is another testament to the talent and the verve of Roosevelt's young core.

After yielding three runs in the top of the first against Ravenna Friday, the sophomore pitcher (and shortstop) responded with a fury, taking the Ravens' first pitch of the game for a triple.

"I didn't really know how to take my anger out, but I knew that there was a baseball in a pitcher's hand 60 feet, six inches away, and the best way to get your anger out on the baseball field is just try to demolish the baseball," Maccarone said. "So that's exactly what I try to do."

Going back to that old but new freight train Spears was talking about, Jack Smith perfectly meshes the two. Smith is a senior but he's new to Roosevelt after transferring from Stow-Munroe Falls. He has stepped in for an injured Sam Lanier and excelled.

"It was an easy transition to center field for him, and every day he gets better," Rough Riders coach Mike Haney said. "It's just the athleticism that he brings to the table has helped us tremendously."

That freight train hopes to take advantage of a new pair of tracks as the Rough Riders shifted from their longtime home in Division I to Division II this season, earning a 16th seed.

Can this old but new group do it?

Spears says sure.

"I've been around a while and my dad's one of our coaches," Spears said. "So I've been here for 18 years, and I've never seen a group of young people come up so well and strong."

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Young but talented, Roosevelt baseball can make noise in OHSAA tourney